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The Bowling Ball Incident
When we were around five and six years old, my brother Eric and I loved playing with Dad's bowling ball. We would drag his bowling bag out of the closet in the hall room and between the two of us lift the sixteen pound black plastic ball. We would roll it to each other on the newly finished wood floor, only occasionally bouncing it off the newly painted walls. For some reason, when Mom heard the thumping and crashing, she told us we couldn't do it anymore and stored the bowling ball way in the back of the closet. The next week, Eric had a great idea - the living room had soft, white Persian carpeting and padded couches and chairs to bounce off. When Dad was out and Mom was napping, we quietly dragged the bowling bag out from the very back of the closet and between the two of us carefully carried the bowling ball into the living room. We found that the living room was much better than the hall because it was three times as long! Eric and I took turns rolling the bowling ball thirty feet to each other. We only stopped when the ball went between Eric's legs and crashed into the dining room table. Fortunately, the noise didn't wake Mom and we were able to get the ball back into the bag, push the bag to the back of the hall closet without anyone being the wiser. Years later, Dad told us the rest of the story... Later that week, Dad went to his bowling league. He arrived just in time to meet his team mates and bowl a few practice turns. One thing I forgot to mention was that Eric and I had been eating Sugar Daddies while rolling the ball around. Our hands were covered with a sticky brown mixture of boy saliva, sugar and caramel flavoring. Somehow, the mixture coated the bowling ball and made an ideal glue for a surprisingly thick, uniform coat of white Persian carpeting fur. For all our stealth, Eric and I did not consider that Dad might not like to bowl with a Hostess Snowball. In fact, we didn't even notice the fur. Of course Dad quickly figured out what had happened, but disciplining Paul and Eric would have to wait. Obviously, he couldn't bowl with a ball covered in fur – it wouldn’t curve. Dad put the fur ball in the Alley's specialized bowling ball cleaning machine and put in the maximum amount - four quarters. After a couple of minutes, Dad took the ball out only to find the ball now had three layers - Sugar Daddy glue, white Persian fur, and bowling ball wax slicking it down. By this time, the game was scheduled to start, so Dad rushed to the bathroom. Unfortunately, the free standing sink was too small to hold the bowling ball. As Dad's blood pressure rose, he realized there was only one thing to do - wash the ball in the toilet. He picked the toilet with the fewest skid marks and plunked the ball in the bowl. Of course he had no brush nor gloves, so he had to continuously flush, rotate the ball in the toilet water, and rub the ball with his bare hands. It took about five minutes for the cold water and constant rubbing to break down the wax, white Persian fur, and Sugar Daddy glue. Finally, the ball was clean and Dad could bowl. His teammates were ribbing him, but Dad was not particularly amused. Shortly after Dad got home, he took Eric and I aside and told us that he knew we had been playing with his bowling ball despite being told not to. We told him we thought we weren't supposed to roll it around in the hall and we hadn't - we only rolled it in the living room. He told us in no uncertain terms that we were never to touch it again without his permission. We were relieved and a bit surprised that we weren't punished. We figured our legalistic interpretation of the rules convinced him to spare us. It wasn't until years later we found out the real reason... After the toilet bath, my Dad was so angry and flushed with adrenaline that he bowled the best series of his life! He averaged five or more strikes and well over 200 points per game. At the end of the night his teammates asked if he could take their bowling balls home to get the special treatment! We were lucky that Dad punished the bowling pins and not us.